Gerald Ford's call for UFO hearings

Gerald Ford's call for UFO hearings

Who	Gerald R. Ford, House Republican leader, Michigan's 5th district
Trigger	Michigan sightings at Dexter (20 March 1966) and Hillsdale (21 March), and J. Allen Hynek's "swamp gas" explanation
Call	25 March 1966; formal letter to the Armed Services and Science and Astronautics chairmen on 28 March
Hearing	House Armed Services Committee, 5 April 1966, chaired by L. Mendel Rivers
Result	Air Force-funded University of Colorado study under Edward Condon, announced 7 October 1966 (about $300,000)
Aftermath	Condon Report (1968); Project Blue Book closed (1969)
Date	3 April 1966
Topics	Secrecy & cover-up (topic), Government programs (topic), Congress & law (topic)
People	Gerald Ford, J. Allen Hynek, Edward Condon
Testimony	Shellenberger testimony, p. 68
Year	1966 in UFO history
Timeline	1966 on the UAP Timeline
Sources	13

In March 1966 Gerald Ford, the Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, called for a congressional investigation of UFOs. A wave of sightings in his home state of Michigan had just been explained away by the Air Force's consultant as "swamp gas".^[1][9] No congressional leader had made such a call before.^[1] It led to a House Armed Services Committee hearing on 5 April 1966.^[2][4] Later that year it led to the Air Force-funded University of Colorado UFO study under the physicist Edward Condon. Ford claimed credit for that study.^[7][9] The Condon Report of 1968 led in turn to the closure of Project Blue Book in 1969.^[3]

The Michigan sightings

Several hundred people reported mysterious lights over southern Michigan in the week of 20 March 1966. Two events drew the most witnesses:^[1][10]

• Dexter. About 10 miles northwest of Ann Arbor, on the night of Sunday 20 March, some 50 people saw lights and a football-shaped object over a swamp. The closest were about 500 yards away. A UPI report that Ford quoted said at least 40 people, including 12 policemen, saw an object "guarded by four sister ships" land in the swamp.^[9]
• Hillsdale. The next evening, about 70 miles southwest of Ann Arbor, 87 women students at Hillsdale College took notes on an object hovering over a swamp outside their dormitory. A college dean and the county civil defence director, William Van Horn, also saw it. Van Horn said the lights he watched through binoculars came from "some kind of vehicle".^[10]

Other reports that week came from across the country, from Maine to Texas.^[10]

Swamp gas

On 25 March J. Allen Hynek, the Northwestern University astrophysicist who was the Air Force's UFO consultant, gave a news conference in Detroit:^[1]

• His explanation. At least the two main events might be marsh gas, released from rotting vegetation when the spring thaw freed it from ice. Such lights can go out in one place and appear in another, "giving the illusion of motion".
• His reasoning. The glow was "a very localized phenomenon", and no one saw a craft arrive or leave. "A dismal swamp is a most unlikely place for a visit from outer space," he said.
• His limits. The explanation did not "cover the entire UFO phenomena over the past 20 years". He called the Hillsdale report "sincere and honest reporting of a very puzzling sighting", while saying young men had played pranks with flares.
• Other reports. He dismissed photographs from near Milan, Michigan, as time exposures of the rising moon and Venus.

Ford's call

The same day, Ford said he would ask the chairmen of the Armed Services and Science and Astronautics committees to consider "full blown" investigations. He had just been in Michigan, and "I can assure you there is interest and I suspect public concern". If swamp gas was the answer, the Air Force should have no hesitation in explaining that to a committee.^[1][9] He later said that, apart from the attention, "it must be a real dull day, newswise". He hoped an inquiry would "allay any apprehensions or fears".^[10] In a column for his district's weekly papers, he wrote that "the Air Force has been explaining away UFO's for years". He did not believe the public was satisfied.^[5][8]

The letter of 28 March

On 28 March Ford wrote to Representatives L. Mendel Rivers of Armed Services and George P. Miller of Science and Astronautics, and to their committees' ranking Republicans:^[9][12]

• His complaint. Hynek had dismissed the reports as "college-student pranks or swamp gas or an impression created by the rising crescent moon and the planet Venus". Ford did "not agree that all of these reports can be or should be so easily explained away". His press release called the swamp-gas version "flippant".
• His proposal. One committee should hold hearings and take testimony "from both the executive branch of the government and some of the persons who claim to have seen UFO's".
• His support. He enclosed a Roscoe Drummond column calling for "a more credible and detached appraisal of the evidence", and articles by Bulkley Griffin accusing the Air Force of "misleading the public".
• Witnesses. He cited telegrams, including one from a retired Air Force colonel who wrote, "I have seen UFO. Will be available to testify". He also cited a WJR Detroit report of a sighting by an aeronautical engineer at the Ford Motor Company. "Are we to assume that everyone who says he has seen UFO's is an unreliable witness?"
• His conclusion. "I think we owe it to the people to establish credibility regarding UFO's."

Congressional reluctance

The New York Times reported that both committees were wary:^[1][10]

• Science and Astronautics. A spokesman thought the matter belonged to Armed Services, since the Air Force investigated saucers. A hearing would have to take "anybody who says he's seen one". The committee already heard from people "who want to tell us how you can fly to the moon on a washboard".
• Armed Services. A spokesman joked that the Un-American Activities Committee should take it, because unidentified objects over the country were un-American. He added that laughing at witnesses "might be like laughing at the guy who thought of the submarine".
• The dilemma. An inquiry might alarm the public by suggesting congressional concern. Refusing invited charges of a cover-up.

Through 1965 the Air Force had studied 10,147 reports, of which 646 remained unidentified.^[10]

The hearing

In a release dated 3 April, Ford said most letters he had received backed an investigation. He noted that the Armed Services Committee had scheduled what he called a "closed-door hearing" with the Air Force for Tuesday, 5 April.^[9] He revealed that in 1961 a three-man Science and Astronautics subcommittee under Representative Joseph Karth had held two days of "hush-hush" hearings with Air Force witnesses in Karth's office, with no record made.^[9] He also wrote: "I have never said that I believe any of the reported UFO sightings indicate visits to earth from another planet." Some might be "products of experimentation by our own military", and if so, the Air Force should say so.^[9]

The Armed Services Committee, chaired by Rivers, heard Air Force Secretary Harold Brown, the head of Project Blue Book and Hynek on 5 April 1966. Its proceedings were published as "Unidentified Flying Objects", a hearing of the 89th Congress, second session.^[2][4][7] Brown defended the Air Force's work and repeated the call of its Scientific Advisory Board's O'Brien Committee for more study. Hynek called for "a civilian panel of physical and social scientists".^[7] The scanned hearing transcript on GovInfo has no text layer and could not be read directly.^[2] One later local account says there was never a formal congressional hearing. That conflicts with the published record of the 5 April session.^[4][11]

The Colorado study

On 21 April Ford announced that the Air Force had told him it would contract with a university with no close Air Force ties for a study by "high-caliber scientists". He said the report would be public. "It was as a result of my call for a congressional investigation," Ford said, though he "would have preferred a congressional investigation with witnesses". He called the study "a step in the right direction".^[9]

On 7 October 1966 the Air Force wrote to tell Ford it had chosen the University of Colorado:^[9]

• Money. A research agreement of about $300,000 through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
• People. Edward Condon, a former director of the National Bureau of Standards, directed it, with Robert J. Low as coordinator and Franklin Roach and Stuart Cook as principal investigators.
• Independence. The team would have Blue Book's files but work "independently of and without direction from the Air Force".
• Review. The National Academy of Sciences would review the result.

Several universities, including Harvard, Berkeley and MIT, had declined.^[7] A copy of the Air Force's contract with the university is also held in an online CIA document collection.^[13]

Aftermath

The Condon Report of 1968 concluded that further study of UFOs was unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries.^[7] An Air Force staff paper of 20 October 1969, the "Bolender memo", cited the report and the Academy's review in concluding that Project Blue Book "cannot be justified, either on the ground of national security or in the interest of science". The same paper noted that reports affecting national security went through other channels, "not part of the Blue Book system".^[3] Blue Book closed in 1969.^[3] Ford's papers also contain later UFO material, including press items from April 1967.^[9] An article from the University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library about the episode refused automated access.^[6]

Assessment

Ford's call put the weight of a House leader behind demands for an independent look at UFOs. It helped bring about both the April 1966 hearing and the Colorado study.^[7][9] He framed it as a matter of public confidence rather than belief in alien visitors. The study he welcomed ended by recommending against further Air Force investigation.^[3][9]

People and topics

• Gerald Ford — U.S. congressman and later president who called for UFO hearings in 1966.
• Unidentified anomalous phenomena — The U.S. government's current term for unidentified objects in the air, in space and underwater.
• U.S. Air Force — The U.S. military service that ran the official UFO projects from 1947 to 1969.
• J. Allen Hynek — Astronomer and Air Force UFO consultant from 1948 to 1969 who later founded the Center for UFO Studies.
• Michigan swamp gas UFO reports — A 1966 wave of UFO reports in Michigan that J. Allen Hynek suggested might be marsh gas.
• House Armed Services Committee — The House committee that held a UFO hearing in 1966.
• Edward Condon — Physicist who led the University of Colorado UFO study (1966–68).
• Condon Report — Condon Report
• Project Blue Book — The Air Force's public UFO investigation from 1952 until its closure in December 1969.

On the Timeline

• China Lake surveyors' sighting (1966) (18 January 1966) — Two surveyors at China Lake see a UAP pass low overhead and maneuver.
• House Armed Services Committee UFO hearing (1966) (5 April 1966) — The Blue Book chief tells Congress there are no unexplained radar cases, contradicted by records.

See every 1966 event on the UAP Timeline →

Further reading

References

Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia article “Condon Committee”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.